Simple Abundance 7/13-7/18
Jul. 18th, 2002 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cthulhia
7/13 Shopping list
SBB is a house-manager, as my cousin's wife describes herself on her business card. She plans out meals for anyone other than herself, and for an entire week at a time. This is foreign to me. Although, I suppose if I ever mean to successfully follow a diet, I will have to develop this habit.
I guess I'll try, for this week. I'll have to go to the store when I get home anyway. It's my turn to buy TP, for one.
Today:
breakfast: coffee.
lunch: tuna salad.
$ early dinner: at Blue Tusk, maybe Lemon Grass, although, I think I can make an adequate version of my favorite dish for substantially less than $20. It requires finding a store that carries the ingredients. I can find the shrimps, cashews, the lychees, plum/dates, and thai peppers, but I'm not sure where to get the (mild) thai sausage or the lotus seeds.
snack: snap peas and race swag.
Sunday: brunch of the free stuff (beer, mostly) at the Boilermaker.
dinner: mom will probably do up something because there'll be more than one sibling here.
snack:
Monday: (assuming I drive back this day)
breakfast: probably from mom.
lunch: leftovers for the drive
dinner: I'll have to use up the spinach, so possibly that and, tuna, feta?
snack: snap peas
Tuesday:
breakfast: oatmeal sweetened with some of the 982836423846 opened jars of jam/jelly in the fridge. and maybe an egg.
$ lunch: diesel, if I go.
dinner: use anything fresh left. (have a dinner date?) or, if I go to a game night, I'm likely to subsist on the evil carbs.
snack: snap peas
Wednesday: (Shopping at open market)
breakfast: usual.
lunch: something to tide me over for a 10 pm dinner
$ dinner: redbones
snack: produce?
Thursday:
breakfast: usual.
lunch: something to tide me over for late potluck or post-run snack.
dinner: potluck? I'm possibly running the Jerry Garcia (?) race.
snack: produce?
Friday:
breakfast: usual.
lunch: something made with open market produce.
$ dinner: artbeat?
snack: produce.
Saturday
brunch: something big enough that I only need one meal at artbeat.
$ dinner: artbeat.
snack: food at any of the parties I might actually reach.
I have horrible eating habits.
(7/18: and I didn't come back until just in time for game night... missed the market, and it's probably too hot to run tonight.)
7/14 More planned unplanned abuse
She recalls with a shudder when she left her menu as uncertain as I do, and proceeds to recommend cookbooks to help overcome such a handicap of no food planning. She divides dining into: make-do, take-out, homestyle, and feasts. Textbook Simply Abundant folks live primarily on homestyle. I'm generally a make-do, take-out type. Which is probably why I'm being such a pig at Chez Mom. Lobster for dinner, but, aside from the fun of breaking into the shell, I think I preferred the grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for lunch.
7/15 Tablesettings as ritual
To sum up, put out the best china for yourself once in a while. Hmmm. As far as that goes, I already put out my nicest china. I don't use the martini glasses enough, but then, I don't do a lot of martinis at home. I sense a cocktail party in my future, someday...
I suppose I could at least try to set the table.
7/16 Seasonal feasting
(written 7/18)
Eating foods in their season not only keeps you linked with nature's rhythms, but it is also cheaper. I took an even thriftier route today. My brother treated me to Symeon's, calling it a business lunch. We discussed his new business without venturing into family miasma, and the most we discussed about religion was Monty Python. Everyone believes in that.
For dinner we had Tony's Pizza, which is always in season in Utica.
I think I probably had some snap peas and some of those yellow cherries Mom likes so much. She bought white peaches for me, apparently I raved about them ad nauseum once. They got snarfed before I even saw them.
7/17 Loaves and fishes
Jesus feeding the masses with so little is the cardinal example of Simple Abundance. Ok. I feel obliged to find a non divine intervention variant. This great wandering philosopher offers his pittance of food to the masses. Stone soup. Generosity breeds generosity. Once someone makes a contribution, everyone does, and there's enough to go around. So, the New Testament parable applies even to Atheists.
Anyway, the next part of her interpretation is that the Apostles don't buy bread, taking Jesus' cryptic words too literally, as well as forget his neat trick of seeming to produce bread from nowhere. The Apostles were being Clueless. They failed to process what they were seeing and hearing, because it didn't reconcile with their grasp of reality.
What are you failing to notice that happening right in front of you?
It's not what I'm not noticing, it's that there are so many things, they start to blur. This contributes to my growing desire to isolate myself again. Although, Portland has exploded in bad vibes for me since Tuesday, and would probably fast get socially crowded anyway.
7/18 Those loafing fishes again
More on the stone soup variant. Everyone can bring a little bit. Potluck.
And it's even Thursday.
Amusingly, she discusses how people agonize and torture themselves when being hosts. The house gets totally cleaned, rearranged, resorted, etc. Generally, I throw parties to motivate myself to get the place picked up, and maybe even scrubbed. I always do it as some level of potluck (at least in terms of prep), lining up friends who find cooking relaxing and hosting stressful, since I am the other way around. And, since the first hour of a party is small and dull, giving people tasks seems to work.
Note: November 1st falls on a Friday. Consider this a date-grab.
SBB is a house-manager, as my cousin's wife describes herself on her business card. She plans out meals for anyone other than herself, and for an entire week at a time. This is foreign to me. Although, I suppose if I ever mean to successfully follow a diet, I will have to develop this habit.
I guess I'll try, for this week. I'll have to go to the store when I get home anyway. It's my turn to buy TP, for one.
Today:
breakfast: coffee.
lunch: tuna salad.
$ early dinner: at Blue Tusk, maybe Lemon Grass, although, I think I can make an adequate version of my favorite dish for substantially less than $20. It requires finding a store that carries the ingredients. I can find the shrimps, cashews, the lychees, plum/dates, and thai peppers, but I'm not sure where to get the (mild) thai sausage or the lotus seeds.
snack: snap peas and race swag.
Sunday: brunch of the free stuff (beer, mostly) at the Boilermaker.
dinner: mom will probably do up something because there'll be more than one sibling here.
snack:
Monday: (assuming I drive back this day)
breakfast: probably from mom.
lunch: leftovers for the drive
dinner: I'll have to use up the spinach, so possibly that and, tuna, feta?
snack: snap peas
Tuesday:
breakfast: oatmeal sweetened with some of the 982836423846 opened jars of jam/jelly in the fridge. and maybe an egg.
$ lunch: diesel, if I go.
dinner: use anything fresh left. (have a dinner date?) or, if I go to a game night, I'm likely to subsist on the evil carbs.
snack: snap peas
Wednesday: (Shopping at open market)
breakfast: usual.
lunch: something to tide me over for a 10 pm dinner
$ dinner: redbones
snack: produce?
Thursday:
breakfast: usual.
lunch: something to tide me over for late potluck or post-run snack.
dinner: potluck? I'm possibly running the Jerry Garcia (?) race.
snack: produce?
Friday:
breakfast: usual.
lunch: something made with open market produce.
$ dinner: artbeat?
snack: produce.
Saturday
brunch: something big enough that I only need one meal at artbeat.
$ dinner: artbeat.
snack: food at any of the parties I might actually reach.
I have horrible eating habits.
(7/18: and I didn't come back until just in time for game night... missed the market, and it's probably too hot to run tonight.)
7/14 More planned unplanned abuse
She recalls with a shudder when she left her menu as uncertain as I do, and proceeds to recommend cookbooks to help overcome such a handicap of no food planning. She divides dining into: make-do, take-out, homestyle, and feasts. Textbook Simply Abundant folks live primarily on homestyle. I'm generally a make-do, take-out type. Which is probably why I'm being such a pig at Chez Mom. Lobster for dinner, but, aside from the fun of breaking into the shell, I think I preferred the grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for lunch.
7/15 Tablesettings as ritual
To sum up, put out the best china for yourself once in a while. Hmmm. As far as that goes, I already put out my nicest china. I don't use the martini glasses enough, but then, I don't do a lot of martinis at home. I sense a cocktail party in my future, someday...
I suppose I could at least try to set the table.
7/16 Seasonal feasting
(written 7/18)
Eating foods in their season not only keeps you linked with nature's rhythms, but it is also cheaper. I took an even thriftier route today. My brother treated me to Symeon's, calling it a business lunch. We discussed his new business without venturing into family miasma, and the most we discussed about religion was Monty Python. Everyone believes in that.
For dinner we had Tony's Pizza, which is always in season in Utica.
I think I probably had some snap peas and some of those yellow cherries Mom likes so much. She bought white peaches for me, apparently I raved about them ad nauseum once. They got snarfed before I even saw them.
7/17 Loaves and fishes
Jesus feeding the masses with so little is the cardinal example of Simple Abundance. Ok. I feel obliged to find a non divine intervention variant. This great wandering philosopher offers his pittance of food to the masses. Stone soup. Generosity breeds generosity. Once someone makes a contribution, everyone does, and there's enough to go around. So, the New Testament parable applies even to Atheists.
Anyway, the next part of her interpretation is that the Apostles don't buy bread, taking Jesus' cryptic words too literally, as well as forget his neat trick of seeming to produce bread from nowhere. The Apostles were being Clueless. They failed to process what they were seeing and hearing, because it didn't reconcile with their grasp of reality.
What are you failing to notice that happening right in front of you?
It's not what I'm not noticing, it's that there are so many things, they start to blur. This contributes to my growing desire to isolate myself again. Although, Portland has exploded in bad vibes for me since Tuesday, and would probably fast get socially crowded anyway.
7/18 Those loafing fishes again
More on the stone soup variant. Everyone can bring a little bit. Potluck.
And it's even Thursday.
Amusingly, she discusses how people agonize and torture themselves when being hosts. The house gets totally cleaned, rearranged, resorted, etc. Generally, I throw parties to motivate myself to get the place picked up, and maybe even scrubbed. I always do it as some level of potluck (at least in terms of prep), lining up friends who find cooking relaxing and hosting stressful, since I am the other way around. And, since the first hour of a party is small and dull, giving people tasks seems to work.
Note: November 1st falls on a Friday. Consider this a date-grab.
